The use of pulsatile instruments producing a metallic sound increased greatly in Europe, especially after the return from the Crusades. But even before this date the Egyptian timbrel was used in religious and festival music; this instrument was composed of a circle whereon rings were hung, which tinkled as they struck together when the timbrel was shaken. The Oriental triangle was also used on these occasions; this was almost the same then as it is at the present day. The drum has always been a hollow case covered with a stretched skin, but the shape and size of this instrument have caused great variations in its name, and also in the way in which it was used. In the Middle Ages it was called _taborellus_, _tabornum_, and _tympanum_. It generally made its appearance in festal music, and especially in processions; but it was not until the fourteenth century that it began to take a place in military bands, at least in France; the Arabians, however, have used it from the earliest ages. In the thirteenth century the _taburel_ was a kind of tambourine, played on with only a drum-stick; in the _tabornum_ we may recognise the military drum of the present day; and the _tympanum_ was equivalent to our tambourine. Sometimes, as seen in a sculpture in the Musicians’ Hall at Rheims, this instrument was attached to the right shoulder of the performer, who played upon it by striking it with his head, while at the same time he blew through two metal flutes communicating with the inside of the drum (Fig. 177). [Illustration: Fig. 176.--Chime of Bells of the Ninth Century. (MS. de Saint-Blaise.)] [Illustration: Fig. 177.--_Tympanum_ of the Thirteenth Century. (Sculpture on the Musicians’ Hall, Rheims.)] We have now to speak of stringed instruments, the whole of which may be divided into three principal classes: those played on by the fingers, those that are struck, and those which are rubbed (_frottées_) by means of some appliance. As a matter of fact, there are some stringed instruments which may be said to belong to all three of these classes, as all three modes of playing upon them has been adopted either simultaneously or in succession. The most ancient are doubtless those that are played on by the fingers, first among which, in right of its antiquity, we must name the lyre; from this have sprung the cithern, the harp, the psaltery, the _nabulon_, &c. In the Middle Ages, however, considerable confusion arose from the fact that these original names were at the time often diverted from their real acceptation. The lyre, the stringed instrument _par excellence_ of the Greeks and Romans, preserved its primitive form as late as the tenth century. The strings were generally of twisted gut, but sometimes also of brass wire, and varied in number from three to eight. The sounding-box, which was always placed at the lower part of the instrument, was more often made of wood than of either metal or tortoise-shell (Fig. 178).